


Previously Untreated Fractures

by postinghumorouslyposthumously



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Discussion/Memories of Past Trauma and Abuse, First Kiss, Fluff, Friendship, Get Together, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Oblivious Sirius, PTSD, The Marauders Friendship - Freeform, The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, Trauma, We're Healing Y'all, oblivious Remus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 14:01:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20640344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postinghumorouslyposthumously/pseuds/postinghumorouslyposthumously
Summary: When Sirius was seven years old, he snapped his wrist.-“Mate, you don’t have to do that thing you do where you pretend like everything’s alright even though it’s not,” James said, squeezing Sirius’ shoulder, “I swear, with you three it’s like having my own band of emotionally constipated stage clowns.”-'If untreated, the pain experienced from a fracture will likely worsen as time goes on. The main risk of an untreated fracture, however, is improper healing. This can result in visible deformities, misalignment, limited movement, and infection.'





	Previously Untreated Fractures

**Author's Note:**

> “You broke your best friend’s wrist, James?” Lily questioned incredulously, ignoring Sirius entirely. James flushed. 
> 
> “It was an accident!” He reasoned.

When Sirius was seven years old, he snapped his wrist. 

He remembered this as he sat in the hospital wing, holding his newly injured wrist to his chest and staring at the floor, waiting for Pomfrey to get to him. 

It’s funny, how we can forget things like that, Sirius thought. Though, he supposed, maybe not. He wasn’t really surprised by his forgetfulness. Only surprised at the memory itself and how it was like it hadn’t existed at all before, and then suddenly, in the same split second jolt of his  _ new  _ snapped wrist, the memory of his previous snapped back into existence everything he felt in the  _ now  _ was amplified by everything he’d felt then. 

James was sulking. Uncharacteristically quiet and sitting in a chair next to the bed, staring at his shoes. It was probably the only reason Pomfrey was allowing him to stay. Usually when one of them got hurt, the rest got booted out. 

Sirius blinked and looked up at his best friend. He grinned.

“S’not your fault, Prongs,” Sirius said with good humor. 

Though it was, a bit.

They’d been wrestling in the dorms. Sirius had said something to get them both riled up, and then James had tackled him where he was sitting on his bed, and they’d wrested and thrashed and laughed and fallen off the bed and--

At that point everything’d gone cold dead silent. It took a few seconds for Sirius to register the pain, and the embarrassingly high-pitched shout he’d given when his wrist had made impact wrong with the floor, and his and James’ combined weight landed on it. 

Everything was still as night for a second. Then James had scrambled off him and started asking him if he were alright, and both Remus and Peter rushed over, and Remus knelt down and took Sirius’ wrist lightly, but it hurt like he’d just set it on fire, and then there was a mad dash stumble to the hospital wing, and all Sirius was thinking about was how he snapped his wrist when he was seven. 

Pomfrey was back, and she was saying things. Scolding them. Berating them for their reckless behavior. Muttering. Angered. Disappointed. Sirius was still grinning slightly at James, but when all James did was utter something low and unintelligible without looking up at him, Sirius’ eyes slowly fell again to the floor and his smile disappeared too. 

Madam Pomfrey took his wrist, and Sirius didn’t react. 

Remus and Peter were here too. Standing near the end of the bed Sirius was sat on the edge of. Neither of them said anything either. Just stared. 

Sirius felt like they were all taking matters far too  _ seriously _ . When he’d broken his wrist before, when he was seven, he’d--well, he’d felt indescribable pain. Like someone’d just gone ahead and ripped out the bone altogether. His eyes welled with tears, and he’d bit down into his lip to stop himself as he looked up at his mother and she looked surprised. Funny, Sirius had never seen that precise look on his mother’s face before, and he didn’t think he ever had again. Then, she let go of his wrist, and walked out of the room and they never acknowledged it at all. 

“Padfoot!” 

Sirius’ head snapped up. James had called his name; was looking at him with concern. That special sort of  _ James  _ concern that crawled into Sirius’ insides and squished him all up and made him inexplicably angry sometimes. 

James flicked his eyes purposefully to Pomfrey, and when Sirius looked at her, she was staring at him with an expectant eyebrow raised. 

“Mr. Black…” she said with the air of one who was repeating themselves. “Have you ever had your wrist broken before?” 

Sirius’ heart sunk--or thumped, or jumped into his throat or something of similar acrobatic nature. He raised an eyebrow of his own at her. 

“Why would you ask that?” He asked, and winced at the defensiveness that crept into his voice. 

Madam Pomfrey was still holding his wrist gingerly, wand now pointed at it. “There are signs of a previously untreated fracture.” 

Sirius’ brows furrowed. 

“If there are signs of a previous fracture, why’d you need to ask?” Sirius inquired, and while it was something he’d probably typically say, usually it’d be paired with a grin and a glint of mischievousness in his eyes. It was all cold, petty contemptuousness just then. 

Madam Pomfrey pursed her lips and fixed him with a stern look. 

“ _ When _ did you break your wrist previously, Mr. Black?” Pomfrey asked, seeming to convey that she was going to--just barely--let his insubordination slide that once, but that he should watch his attitude. 

Sirius licked his lips, couldn’t pull the frown from his face. 

“I don’t remember,” he said. 

He didn’t want to be doing this in front of his friends. In front of anybody. He wanted to go to bed and hold his arm as gently as he could and bury his face under the pillow and feel better. 

Pomfrey pursed her lips again, but remained silent. She resumed her examination of Sirius’ wrist. After a moment, she set it down gently in his lap and turned around. 

“Right, the three of you out. Mr. Black will be finished shortly. Out. Get.” 

Sirius looked up at his friends, and they all glanced at him and seemed reluctant to leave. Sirius steeled himself and fixed them with a cocky grin. 

“Better do what the she-witch says.” 

His friends left warily. First Peter, followed by a deep-in-thought appearing Remus, and finally James. 

Before he left, though, James came over to him and knocked his fist into Sirius’ shoulder lightly. smiling ( _ pathetically _ , Sirius thought) at him.  _ Then  _ he trailed behind the others. 

Sirius watched them go as Pomfrey got together a potion. She returned holding a small goblet. Sirius took it and drank it without complaint. 

“We’ll get you a wrapping and then you can be out in a few minutes,” Madam Pomfry said, before walking off to get some bandages. 

The potion left a thick feeling in Sirius’ mouth, and shortly after his wrist became numb and started tingling. He shuddered with the magic. The pain was almost completely gone, the relief was instantaneous. 

Pomfrey came back and started wrapping his wrist. 

“Have you remembered when it was that you last broke your wrist, Mr. Black?” Pomfrey asked as she studiously wrapped the bandages ‘round and ‘round. 

“When I was seven,” he replied without looking at her. 

“Did you have a fall?” 

Sirius bit back a sneer. He didn’t know why he was being so defensive. Pomfrey didn’t deserve his anger. 

“Yes,” Sirius said finally, licking his lips. 

Pomfrey said nothing. She finished bandaging his wrist, which still tingled like it had fallen asleep, but it was a lot better than the pain. 

A few minutes later, he was unleashed once more unto the halls of Hogwarts. 

James, Remus, and Peter were all waiting right outside the hospital wing. 

Sirius paused, and fixed them with a grin. 

“Still alive, mates,” he said easily, walking towards them. 

James rubbed the back of his neck and looked at the wrapping around his friend’s arm. 

“Sorry about that, Pads,” James said. 

Sirius neared him, and punched him in the arm playfully with his good hand. 

“Don’t mention it, Prongsie. Right as rain.” 

James looked at him and raised an eyebrow. 

A few seconds passed by in a strange silent pause, in which everyone glanced around at each other awkwardly. 

“Oh, come of it, all of you,” Sirius said, glancing around at all of them almost-playfully if not for the slight hardness to his eyes and set of his jaw, trying to convey that he was  _ just fine  _ and they all needed to  _ move on _ . 

They shifted. 

“Dinner?” Peter inquired brightly. Sirius beamed. 

“Wonderful idea, Wormy!” 

They got some looks, but no one was too surprised to see one of the Marauders with a wrapping around his wrist. Though usually it was Remus who was sporting the band-aids, it wasn’t  _ un _ usual for one of the other boys to get scratched, bruised, or broken in one of their endeavors (as they would say), or shenanigans (as Lily Evans would say). 

“What’ve you done then?” Evans asked, plopping herself into a seat across from the four of them, and directly across from Sirius himself. Sirius grinned wolfishly. 

“Your concern for me is endearing, Evans,” he replied easily. 

She rolled her eyes. 

“I only ask because whatever it is  _ you four  _ are planning or have already done that caused you to break your arm spells disaster for the rest of us, and I like fair warning of your shenanigans.” 

“‘ _ Shenanigans _ ’, she says,” Sirius snorts. 

“Pads didn’t break his wrist because of a prank,” Remus said with a roll of his eyes, “he did it in a much stupider way.” 

Evans’ eyebrows shot up to about her hairline. 

“Stupider than your juvenile pranks? This ought to be good.”

“ _ I  _ broke his wrist.” 

All heads--well, just four of them--turned to James, who was sitting next to Sirius with a pathetically guilty expression on his face. 

“Shut up Prongs, no you didn’t,” Sirius said immediately and turned away, dismissing the topic entirely. “Anyway, I am becoming increasingly bored with talking about my stupid fractured wrist.” 

“You  _ broke  _ your best friend’s  _ wrist _ , James?” Lily questioned incredulously, ignoring Sirius entirely. James flushed. 

“It was an accident!” He reasoned. 

“ _ Yes _ ,” Sirius hissed, “it  _ was _ , Prongs, Lily, and anyone else who’s inexplicably still concerned. I don’t know  _ why  _ you’re being such a dickhead about it, Jamie. I’m sure there’s  _ way  _ worse stuff we’ve done to each other--” Sirius stopped, because there was definitely way worse stuff they’d done to each other, and now Sirius couldn’t look up from his plate, but felt eyes staring holes into the side of his head from his other side where Moony was sitting. 

Dinner was going great so far. 

Sirius removed his hands from the table top and dropped them in his lap, swallowing down a bout of nausea that had crept into his throat. 

“ _ Quidditch! _ ” Peter all but squeaked. 

“Yeah, how _ ever will _ McKinnon manage without her partner-in-crime, co-beater? Who will she get into screaming matches with during  _ actual  _ matches?” Remus said, light-hearted as anything. Under the table, he knocked his foot into Sirius’, and Sirius’ looked up, catching Remus’ eye and watching as the other boy gave him a reassuring nod.  _ It’s okay _ , it said. Sirius went to tuck his hair behind his ears, remembered his bandages, and awkwardly dropped that hand. 

Evans was still narrowing her analyzing gaze at them all, James was still acting like a kicked puppy in the proverbial corner, Peter looked relieved that Remus had jumped onto his attempt to change the topic, and Sirius was too. He scoffed, disdain thick in his tone. 

“You must be  _ barking _ , Moons-” Remus rolled his eyes, and Sirius grinned, “-McKinnon couldn’t  _ function  _ without me on the field.” 

Peter snorted, and grabbed a roll. 

The Marauders did not stick around long after dinner. The four of them went back to the common room, and pretty soon meandered to the dorm incredibly early for the bunch of them. 

They sat on the floor in a circle as Peter got out his deck of muggle cards and they started playing a new game Peter’s sister had taught him, and Peter in turn had taught  _ them _ \--called  _ Uno _ . 

The game was going a lot quieter than usual. Though it was neither silent nor awkward. They kept up a good bit of chatter, Peter swore vengeance on all of them when he was skipped or it was reversed on his turn four times in a row, James dramatically over-acted his response to the betrayal of Remus playing a  _ draw 4  _ on him, and Sirius shouted nearly loud enough for those down in the common room to hear when the color was suddenly changed from red to yellow by Peter. 

Right now, though, they were in a more subdued moment. Going around the circle. Despite the shouting a few minutes ago--which was all light-hearted--Sirius was in a strangely good mood. He felt it bubbling on the surface of his skin, and felt it no deeper. 

“Er...Pads?” 

Sirius looked up, pleasant expression on his face. 

“Yeah, Moonbeam?” He asked the other boy who was sat next to him. He looked like he wanted to continue, but didn’t know how. 

“When you fell...” James spoke up. 

Sirius turned to James, on the other side of him, also sitting with his legs crossed. Sirius’ brows furrowed. 

“You kind of...called out…” 

Sirius, even though fear was expanding like a balloon in his chest and he was terrified to hear whatever it was that he had done, raised his eyebrows impatiently, waiting for his friends to spit it out or play a fucking card. 

“You called out ‘ _ mum _ ’,” James finally said, face scrunching like he was expecting a blow to the face. 

Sirius didn’t react. 

“And at first I thought you were calling out  _ for  _ your mum, but, then, well...I remembered who your mum  _ was _ …” James trailed off. 

Sirius stared at James. His bandaged hand that had been resting in his lap was pressed to his chest, his other hand still holding his cards. He swallowed hard, because his throat was getting tight. He was probably allergic to talking about his mother. 

“Oh?” Sirius asked finally, licking his lips. He looked around, “whose turn is it?” he asked the circle. 

“Obviously you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want, Pads, but…” James continued and paused. “Did your mother ever…?” James let the question trail off without finishing it. There was no need to. The elephant was in the room. The writing was on the wall. The crystal was clear. The wrist was broken.

He felt Moony touch his knee, and he looked over at him and what met him were big, soft, Remus eyes with a big, soft, question behind them.  _ Are you okay?  _

Sirius looked away. Down at his  _ Uno _ cards. He remembered the look on his mother’s face when he’d looked up at her. Remembered crying out then, as well; back when he still called Walburga Black “ _ mum _ ”. 

He cleared his throat, and looked back up at his friends. 

“I’m fine,” he said. 

The looks he was met with made it clear that they did not believe him, yet Sirius knew that if he really,  _ really  _ wanted the subject dropped—they would. 

“Really, though,” he said, looking meaningfully at James. “It was a long time ago.” 

He’d admitted it now. 

James gave him a  _ James  _ look, and scooted closer, reaching a hand up to set on Sirius’ shoulder. Sirius nudged James in the side with his elbow. Sirius grinned again around at everybody. 

“Come on, guys. Don’t make this a  _ thing _ \--S’doesn’t have to be  _ depressing _ . We’re playing a game!” He said, trying to up the cheer again. 

“Mate, you don’t have to do that thing you do where you pretend like everything’s alright even though it’s not,” James said, squeezing Sirius’ shoulder, “I swear, with you three it’s like having my own band of emotionally constipated stage clowns.” 

Sirius snorted, giving James an incredulous sort of look, then dropping his gaze down again. 

“Hey, why you gotta bring me into it?” Peter asked indignantly, shifting. James glanced at him. 

“Oh, don’t pretend like you don’t do it as well.” 

Peter opened his mouth. Closed it Opened it once more. Then gave up and looked down at his cards, pouting. 

Moony’s hand was still on his knee, and he squeezed it briefly before letting go. Sirius glanced at him and felt his heart sink when he met his friend’s eyes. 

What was it about his friends caring about him that made him feel like utter shit? 

“Hey-- _ Uno! _ ” Pete said, and promptly put down one of two cards in his hand. James lifted his hand from Sirius’ shoulder to gesture wildly. 

“Oh, for  _ FUCK’S SAKE _ !” 

The thing about old repressed memories is that they’re like a badly organized, overstuffed closet. Pull one thing out and the rest of the shit comes tumbling forth also. 

That’s how Sirius ended up choking on his comforter in an attempt to not let his friends overhear him crying in his bed that night while reaching for his wand to cast a silencing charm on the whole ordeal. 

Hindsight over a situation ultimately makes everything worse and nothing better. It’s the grasp of details that weren’t obvious in the moment. The Big Picture you can’t see up close. Connecting dots that were more like scribbles in the moment. 

The worst thing that ever happened to Sirius Black was realizing that his trauma was trauma, and not just How Things Were. Meeting Euphemia and Fleamont Potter, seeing how  _ they _ treated each other and their son. Experiencing how James treated  _ him _ . Seeing how James grew up, and realizing that  _ that _ —broom lessons, and beach parties, and time-outs, and licking the spoon—was normal, and ice baths,  _ Silencios _ , and wrist breaking weren’t insomuch. But ice baths,  _ Silencios _ , and wrist breaking was what he had. And it all came crashing over him like tidal waves just then. 

He gasped and choked.  _ Panic attacks _ , Euphemia called them. He always used to call them  _ Never Acknowledge This Again  _ and go on about his life. But he’d never had them quite so often as after he’d escaped Grimmauld Place and moved in with the Potters. 

James knew about them. Had slept in his bed and held his hand through a lot of them. But that was all when the  _ trauma  _ was fresh, and Sirius was too  _ in it  _ to feel anything but miserable about it, and the guilt and shame hadn’t set in. 

He pressed a hand to his head. He didn’t have a grip on his train of thought, he was simply along for the ride. He tried to remind himself where he was. That he was safe.  _ Hogwarts bed. Hogwarts sheets, and blankets, and smells. Out there is James, and Remus, and Peter. In the other dorms are Marlene, and Evans, and Mary, and Dorcas, and Frank. In her quarters is Professor McGonagall—Professor Dumbledore, as shining and bearded as ever in his regal fucking office.  _

His bed curtains opened, and he jolted up with a gasp. Remus startled, wand held up, a dim  _ lumos  _ charm illuminating the dark. 

“ _ Sorry!” _ Remus whispered immediately, eyes wide and locked with Sirius’ own. “ _ I heard—I thought you were having a nightmare _ ,” 

Sirius’ brain kickstarted, and he moved, sniffing, and turning around, and running the back of his hand under his running nose, and trying to scrub his face clean of evidence of tears. 

“ _ It’s fi-ne-ne. I’m fine _ ,” Sirius muttered back, lying pathetically, voice cracking.

“ _ Are you sure?”  _

Sirius hiccoughed. Looked over at Remus again, standing quite awkward at the edge of his bed, one hand holding his lit wand, the other holding back the edge of his bed curtain. Crawling into each others’ beds after nightmares was something they’d been doing since third year. But it was easier to crawl into bed with each other when you’d both been sleeping, and one or both of you were still half-way inside whatever terror your mind had thrown you into that night. Tonight, neither of them had slept yet. Sirius’ chest rose and fell in quick succession with a handful of short, rapid breaths. 

After a long pause of silence, Remus made the executive decision to climb onto Sirius’ bed, pulling the bed curtain shut behind him. He cast  _ muffliato  _ around them, and then faced Sirius, sitting cross-legged in front of him. Sirius pulled his legs underneath him, and crossed his arms over his chest, which made his wrist hurt, but he didn’t care about that right now. He swallowed thickly, and concentrated hard on breathing normally. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

Sirius’ head snapped to the side, almost like he’d been slapped, in his sudden urgency to look anywhere but Remus’ face. 

“No,” he replied, thickness of tears and clear disdain in his voice. 

In his peripheral, Remus bit his lip, and nodded. 

“I can go?” He asked, and went to move. 

Sirius clenched his fists, and still didn’t look at him. 

“No,” Sirius said again. 

Remus stopped. He settled back down slowly. 

“Okay.” 

Sirius’ face crumpled. 

“ _ I’ll talk _ ,” he whispered, tightening his arms. 

“You don’t have to,” Remus responded softly. 

Sirius risked looking at Remus again. His lit wand in his lap cast shadows across the curtains around them. Illuminated their little bubble of space. Made their faces far too clear to see for the time and situation. 

With his arms still crossed tight over his chest, and his face, and hair, and  _ everything about him _ still a miserable mess of... _ mess,  _ Sirius spoke quietly. 

“Tell me something fucked up.” 

Confusion spread across Remus’ face, starting at his furrowing brow and down to the quirk of his mouth. 

Sirius took a shaky breath. 

“Tell me—tell me something your parents did to you.  _ Anything _ .  _ Please _ .” Sirius said. He shut his mouth, and his eyes snapped shut, and he felt hatred curling like tendrils around his gut.  _ Who the fuck asks that?  _ But he stayed silent, and he waited; half expecting Remus to just utter a quiet ‘ _ Nox _ ’ and leave his bed, and go to his own, and afford Sirius the kindness of never acknowledging this again. 

“When I was seven…” 

Sirius’ eyes opened slowly as Remus began. He was staring down at the bed somewhere next to Sirius. Sirius bit his lip, and held his breath. 

“I overheard my parents talking in our kitchen. They thought I was sleeping. It was a couple of nights after the moon…” Remus paused for a second before continuing, “they were upset, and—arguing, I think. About me. And my mum was telling my dad not to get angry, and then suddenly my dad yells  _ “how can I not be angry when that thing stole our son” _ .” 

Remus finished evenly. He blinked, and glanced up at Sirius, biting his lip briefly. 

“And then, he...immediately started crying into his hands, and my mum—she chewed him out for it. For saying it. But...I thought maybe she felt the same way and...just couldn’t—didn’t want to say it.” Remus paused, “He felt terrible about it, but…I just remember staring at him, and realizing for the first time that what I was wasn’t...I was...” Remus stopped. 

Sirius breathed out fast. 

“Rem…” 

Remus’ eyes snapped up to Sirius again, and Sirius saw that they were red and wet. Remus quickly breathed in deeply through his nose. 

“Not quite the same as a broken wrist, but…” Remus trailed off, looking to the side with an awkward sort of half-smile, trying to raise the mood. 

Sirius’ head tilted in sympathy. 

“I’m sorry,” Sirius said, sniffing. 

Remus looked back at him. At his bandaged wrist. 

“Does it hurt?” He asked. 

Sirius looked down, and lowered his arms back to his sides, resting his hands in his lap. 

“No,” he lied. “Not much,” he added. 

Remus reached forward, and gently took the hand of his injured wrist, bringing it to his lap and cradling it between his own two hands. Sirius watched with a growing warmth in his chest. 

“What they did to you...put you through…” Remus started. 

Sirius turned his head again, cringing away from the topic. 

“It’s wrong...and I’m sorry you had to go through it.” 

Sirius shook his head. He made himself look at Remus again. He was met with sincere, sad eyes, looking up at him from under dark lashes. 

“You’re not a monster, Moony,” Sirius murmured, voice barely above a whisper. He squeezed one of the hands that was holding his. 

Remus took that hand and held it carefully against his chest so as not to injure it when he raised his other and pulled Sirius forward into an embrace. Sirius’ head fell into Remus’ shoulder, and he turned to press his face into the crook of Remus’ neck. He felt breath against his ear as Remus’ put his chin on Sirius’ own shoulder, arm wrapped around him, securing them tightly together. Sirius’ fingers of his free hand wound up in the fabric of Remus’ shirt, bunching it up in the back. He shivered, and inhaled deeply, breath shaking as he exhaled. 

Remus pulled back until their faces were inches apart. He exhaled, and Sirius felt it against his mouth. Sirius’ eyes dropped down to Remus’ lips, partially parted, tongue darting out to wet them. Sirius’ eyes lifted back up to Remus’, who was watching him. He tucked Sirius’ hair behind his ear, and Sirius wondered how the  _ fuck  _ anyone who he fucked over so fucking  _ badly  _ could look at him with that much... _ whatever the fuck that was  _ in their eyes. 

Upon thinking of his  _ stupid—STUPID!— _ fuck-up, Sirius’ chin dipped and his eyes flit down again and he was about to lean back and take Remus’ hands away, when Remus kissed him.

Sirius was so surprised, he didn’t do anything. 

After a second, Remus pulled back, hands dropping away. 

“Sorry, I thoug-” 

Sirius lunged before Remus could get any further, arms winding around his shoulders and leaning across his lap, mouths crashing together. 

Remus’ hands came up to hold his sides. He made a surprised sound, and then responded to the kiss. 

It tasted like salt and toothpaste and  _ Moony _ , and Sirius thrilled when Remus opened up his mouth after the gentle prompting of Sirius’ tongue. Remus leaned back until he was laying against Sirius’ pillows and Sirius straddled his hips. 

Remus’ fingers swept through his hair and fisted a handful of it at the base of his skull, other arm wrapped around his lower back, keeping them pressed together. Sirius held Remus’ face in his hands, kissing him deeply, reveling in the tongue pressed against his. 

Remus made a sound, and pulled him back by the hand in his hair, Sirius’ eyes fluttered. 

“Wait,” Remus said, and Sirius looked down at him. 

“What’s wrong?” Sirius asked, running his thumb in soft circles against Remus’ jaw. 

“We shouldn’t...do this right now.” 

Sirius sat up in his lap, frowning, hands resting against Remus’ abdomen. His wrist throbbed, and he remembered its injury, and continued to ignore it. 

“...Why?” Sirius asked, hesitating, feeling his heart plummet, not wanting to hear rejection come out of Remus’ mouth, no matter how unsurprising it’d be in the end. 

“You were just crying a minute ago,” Remus said beneath him. He reached up a hand and cradled the side of Sirius’ face with it. Sirius leaned into it, closing his eyes. 

“So?” Sirius asked, brows knit together. 

“So I don’t want…” Remus paused. Sirius opened his eyes and looked down at him again, watching frustrating emotions play across Remus’ face. Finally, his brow smoothed out, and he looked at Sirius vulnerably, expression open—honest. “I don’t want this just to be a distraction.” 

Sirius sniffed, reached up, and pulled Remus’ hand away from his face. He kissed Remus’ palm before lowering it down to his chest. 

“That what you think?” Sirius asked, unable to stop the hurt from encroaching on his voice. 

Remus’ eyes widened. 

“No, I just...Well, I—” 

“I understand,” Sirius interrupted. 

They stared at each other. Remus lying beneath him and Sirius sitting on top of him. A part of Sirius’ mind still couldn’t quite get past that. Remus’ sides pressing into Sirius’ thighs. Finally, Sirius reached out with his uninjured hand and swept Remus’ bangs back, toying with his fringe. He stared at this instead of having to look into Remus' eyes when he spoke. 

“But I wanted to kiss you just as much this morning as I do now.” 

Remus’ breath hitched. It gave Sirius the courage to meet his eyes again, swallowing nervously.

“I…” Sirius searched for the word. Remus stared up at him, hopeful and anxious and waiting. “Like you,” Sirius settled. For now, that encompassed it. 

Remus cupped his face again, arching up, and Sirius leaned back down to happily grant him what he was asking for. Their lips met again, moving against each other enthusiastically. Sirius made a small noise, and Remus’ hand was back in his hair. Sirius held his injured wrist awkwardly over to the side of Remus’ head, resting it on the pillow. With his other hand, Sirius trailed his fingers along the side of Remus’ neck, over his shoulder and down towards his chest. 

They broke apart again, breathing hard. Remus rested two fingertips against Sirius’ bottom lip, a small, breathy laugh bubbled out of his throat. 

“Yeah?” Remus asked softly, smile still playing on his face. Sirius kissed at his index and middle finger. He nodded. 

Remus moved, sitting up, and they shifted until Sirius was lying on his back and Remus was on top of him, and they were kissing again. In all Sirius’ numerous fantasies and moments of imaging kissing Remus, he never could have come up with this. The real thing. Skin underneath his fingertips, weight on his chest, warm mouth, and tongue, and slightly chapped lips. It was so much better, and it was  _ really fucking happening _ . 

A hand trailed down his side, his wrist throbbed, teeth nipped at his jaw, then his adam’s apple. Remus pulled back, and Sirius moaned, begrudging the loss. 

“ _ Padfoot _ ,” Remus said, and Sirius’ eyes opened, meeting his. Sirius lifted his good hand and cupped the nape of Remus’ neck, drawing him down to kiss him again, but this time it was short, and sweet, and sent goosebumps down Sirius’ back, and communicated to them both that it was probably time to slow down. They pulled back and then Remus laid down beside him, arm slung over Sirius’ middle. 

“ _ Alright _ ?” Remus asked. 

Sirius turned slightly towards him, nose ending up in Remus’ hair as Remus pressed his face into the side of Sirius’ neck. He felt soft breath against his skin. Sirius smiled into Remus’ temple, nodding. 

“ _ Yeah _ .” 


End file.
